


A Lion's Share

by petrovasfire



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:23:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1396240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrovasfire/pseuds/petrovasfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin catches Regina watching him from the forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lion's Share

It had been a long stretch of at least one full minute before Regina could finally find her breath, snagged in her throat in the midst of shock and truth. And all through the agonising minute, the lion tattoo glared up at her like the revelation of a dark secret, and perhaps it’d even felt like it.

And then she ran.

Of course she ran. It’s nothing she hadn't done before.

* * *

Regina is standing at the mouth of the forest, watching as Robin hurls a little boy— _his son?_ —into in the air before catching him again. She has to bite back a smile, because seeing the thief entertain his son only adds more to the bounding tension she’d felt prickling on her skin as she had in the farmhouse; in the brief moment they’d shared.

She leans against the large tree trunk and listens as the Merry Men’s footsteps fade away, and once they do, she tiptoes quietly round the trunk—only to find Robin’s eyes looking right into hers, a few inches too close. She nearly jumps back, and he has an amused expression daubed on his face. His gaze on her is unfaltering, and she tries to look anywhere but him.

“Are you stalking me now, Your Majesty?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Regina slights, though the stern tone she intends to deliver fails her.

“What are you doing here, Regina?” Robin asks, his voice more earnest and less playful.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.” Regina realises that her comebacks are useless and, sighing, she gives up on it altogether. “I came here to apologise.”

“About running away earlier?”

“I wasn’t running away,” she retorts. “I was merely taken aback by—”

“By what?”

Regina is silent then. She can’t tell him that she’s scared. She can’t blurt out Tinker Bell’s long-winded, morale-boosting speech about how she’d been determined to help Regina find her happiness; her 'true love'. She can’t tell him that _he_ is the man that Tinker Bell had been prattling on about; the one whom had given her a momentary flicker of hope as she stood in the doorway of the old tavern only to be devoured by her own nerves and anxiety and worst of all, fear—something she’d only just told Robin that she uses as an ‘effective tool’ to coordinate with power.

This time fear returns once again, and it’s looming over her in the guise of Robin Hood. He’s arching an eyebrow at her, smirking, waiting for her to answer him. His breath is hot in her ear, and she’s feeling a warm pulsing unfurl beneath her skin. Yet all she can do is look at him, because she can’t help the unreserved feeling she has when he’s near; lost—no, _misplaced_ —as if there had been a long-forgotten connection between them. She wonders then if she really _had_  known him in the past year; and if so, where their relations stood before their story was cut short.

Robin’s sleeves are still rolled up to his elbows, and Regina can’t stop her eyes from darting to his right arm, draped against the tree trunk, just to see if she’d imagined the tattoo. It's still there, and she feels another fervent wave of the truth washes over her. He follows her gaze and his eyes rest on his own arm.

“It’s my tattoo, isn’t it?” Robin frowns, tugging on his sleeve defensively. “I take it by the paleness of your face that you don’t like it?”

“No, it’s not that,” Regina manages, “it’s just… unusual. Why a lion?”

“That’s a long story, Your Majesty. I’ll save it for our next trip.” Robin winks at her. “If you promise not to bail on the whiskey again.”

“Fine,” she replies a little too quickly, making her sound more eager than she leads herself to be.

“What shall it be next time, Your Majesty? Will it bring you courage?” He leans closer towards her, and she catches a whiff of him. He smells of the woods; pine and peppermint and coppice, and the warmth of the sun. It’s calming and instinctively, Regina closes her eyes.

When Robin speaks again, his voice is buzzing in her ear. “Or perhaps it will bring you strength.”

“I already have all the strength I need,” Regina says, her voice shaky and convincing no one. Never has she allowed a man to sidle up so close to her; not since Daniel. But she feels so at ease with Robin, and rarely is Regina quick to trust.

“A love potion, then?”

“Perhaps.”

“Something to last us through the night? Until the following day?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, thief,” Regina snaps, but her smile already gives her away. “You know I don’t like people getting in my way.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Robin holds his hands up as a gesture of surrendering. “You know I wouldn’t dream of it.”


End file.
